Are stock cubes, stock pots or liquid stock better?

Very few people make stock every week, so most cooking is done with a bought one. The formats are not interchangeable, and the difference that matters most is salt: a cube made up to a litre is a seasoning decision as much as a flavour one, and reducing that litre to 200ml turns it into something inedible.

Step by step

1. Read the salt figure per 100ml made up, not per cube.Packs state salt per 100ml of prepared stock, which is the number to compare. A typical cube-based stock runs around 0.8–1g of salt per 100ml. Reduce that by four and you have 4g per 100ml, which is undrinkable. Low-salt versions exist and are worth buying if you make sauces.
2. Use cubes where the liquid stays as liquid.Soups, stews, braises, risotto, cooking grains and pulses. The stock is providing seasoning and background savour, and that is exactly what a cube does well. Use slightly less than the packet says and season at the end.
3. Use pots or pastes where you want more roundness.Concentrated gels and pastes generally contain more actual meat or vegetable extract and some fat, which carries flavour and gives a slightly fuller mouthfeel. They dissolve straight into hot liquid and are easy to use in half-quantities.
4. Use chilled liquid stock where body matters.A gravy, a pan sauce, anything reduced. Chilled fresh stock has some gelatine, so it thickens and clings in a way no cube ever will. It is the only bought format worth reducing, and even then taste before you reduce it hard because most are salted.
5. Treat any of them as a seasoning ingredient, not as water.Add stock, then taste, then salt. The most common failure with bought stock is salting a dish as if the liquid were neutral and discovering at the end that it is far too salty to serve.
6. Add depth cheaply rather than buying up the range.Half a cube plus a teaspoon of miso, a splash of soy, a dried mushroom or a parmesan rind gives more depth than a whole cube, with less salt. That combination costs less than the premium formats and tastes better than any of them.

Tips

• Buy unsalted or low-salt stock if you cook sauces regularly. It removes the single biggest constraint on reducing bought stock.
• Check the ingredients on vegetable stock cubes: many contain more salt and sugar proportionally than meat ones, and some contain no vegetable extract worth speaking of.
• Stock pots keep well in the freezer once opened if you use them infrequently.
• Chicken stock is the most useful single format to keep in the house — it goes into far more dishes than beef, and it does not dominate.
• Do not add a cube to a dish that already contains bacon, soy, anchovy, olives or parmesan without tasting first. Those are all salt sources too.

Alternatives

• Stock cubes: Salt, flavour enhancers, dried vegetables, fat and flavourings. Cheapest per litre by a wide margin, long shelf life, very salty. Correct for soups and stews, wrong for anything reduced.
• Stock pots and concentrated gels: A jellied concentrate with more extract and fat than a cube. Rounder, less aggressively salty for the same strength, easy to use in fractions. Middling price, several months in the fridge once opened.
• Bouillon powder: Loose powder measured by the spoon, which makes it the easiest to dose accurately. Usually the saltiest option. Good for seasoning a dish that already has liquid in it, and for sprinkling into a stir-fry or a grain.
• Chilled fresh liquid stock: Simmered stock in a pouch or carton, sold in the chiller. The only format with real gelatine and the closest to homemade. Expensive, short life once opened, and worth it for sauces and for reduction.
• Homemade, frozen in blocks: Free from bones you already have, unsalted so it can be reduced without limit, and better than anything on the shelf. The whole cost is a few hours of unattended simmering and freezer space.

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